The Whelping Box

To allow your dam the opportunity to feel comfortable and about a week to two weeks prior to her whelping date, provide the dam with an area for whelping and nursing her puppies, or your dam will chose a location that may not be desirable. You want to place the whelping box in familiar surroundings that also provide some degree of privacy.
 

There are whelping boxes available from pet stores or ordered from the web. Below is a homemade one I made for MySP. I undercut the ledge near the floor that is high enough so that the puppies cannot jump out but MySP may be able to go in and out. I bedded down the whelping box area with towels to provide nesting material.  For me, towels are ideal and I find them  soft enough (unlike paper, and newspaper ink may stain your dam and the puppies) and can be washed and reused many times over.

 A homemade whelping box